Thursday, September 25, 2008

The Anima

So I had a dream the other night and I was a creature called 'The Anima' (ah.nee.ma). I basically ended a war between two bases, modern tribes, whatever. One base was of industry, with weapons and walls and floors of rust colour steel. The other base was more magic based. The walls and floors were concrete here but there were random vines and streams. Water trickled down the walls too. So these two bases were at war, and I came into exsistence. The magic base took me to the industrial base where I was chained down. They said I was too dangerous to have around. I didn't understand why I was so dangerous though, or why I was there.Anyway, from what I took from the dream, I developed the Anima as a creature. Here we go!

The Anima are solitary creatures, living in a space parallel to our world, with no life or colour. The Anima are attracted to magic, when a being in our world chooses to cast magic, it creates a small opening in the Anima's world. The Anima will seek out this magic opening as fast as they can, for when the spellcaster is finished with their spell, the opening closes instantly.

In my dream as an Anima, I crawled through a bright, green haze, and I could see the spellcaster ahead of me. I could see her begin to panic because I was coming to the real world and she couldn't cancel out her magic in time. I reached out and the pads of my fingers stuck to the thin barrier between reality, and the Anima's world. As the barrier broke, it made me think of melted seran wrap, the way it stuck to my fingers and stretched, creating circular holes.

Young Anima (who are lucky to make it) do not understand what they are to do when then enter reality. They simply know they are attracted to magic. As they become older, the craving for magic turns them from docile, to more aggressive creatures. They kill magic users in order to absorb the magic for themselves, which upon absorbing, will give them more power and help them grow.

The Anima come in many colours, but generally keep the same features such as big paw like feet, fur, and ribbed horns. Their fur matches the main colour of their skin, where the rest of the skin is always white, or a very washed out tone of their main colour.For instance, I was an Anima in my dream, my fur and skin were close to royal blue, and the rest (white spots on the image above minus fur) was a very light blue.The Anima's fur and skin is very delicate and soft, and their horns very durable. It explains why they are sold for so much money, ranging from $300, 000 - $500,000 USD for full pelts. Taxadermists have yet to perfect a way to preserve the Anima's form, as it deteriorates faster than normal biological creatures/beings.

Once they have reached adulthood, powerful Anima will seek each other out to mate. Female Anima's are much larger than males, and it is the females who fight for the right to mate.For a size comparison, the young females would be the size of a Great Dane, and the adult females can get up to the size of an African Rhino (couldn't think of any other comparisons :P )However, not many make it to reality, only about 15 a year, and half of them get slaughtered and sold for a high price.

Breeding can only happen in reality, and once the mating period of several weeks is over, the female will either ingest the dead or dying male who is too weak from mating (for extra energy). Using her own magic, she sucks herself back into the dark world from where they came.She will give birth to a live litter of 2 - 4 younglings at around 6 months, and take care of them for several months. After the several months are over, the mother will pass away, leaving her youngsters to feed off her carcass and absorb the left over magic for themselves. This magic will allow them to grow a little more until they can find a magic portal.

Not many Anima's make it to reality, and because they are the only things living in their world, they feed on each other, though they do not need to feed often. They are solitary creatures that are constantly on the move in hopes of finding a magic portal.